Woodworking a family affair for Golies

Golie’s Woodworking is a true family business, involving Matt Golie; his wife, Terri Golie; and their three sons, Josiah, 12, Quinn, 9, and Micah, 5.

In fact, the most commonly-used word heard in the Golie household is “we.” According to Matt Golie, “we” means all of his choices and decisions involve the whole family. He said that their sons are brought up with a sense of responsibility and a joy of learning by being involved with woodworking projects.

Matt Golie is the pastor of the Assembly of God Church in Keshena. He previously served with the Assembly of God locations in Shawano and Gillett.

“We’ve been connected to our community for quite some time,” he said. “Before the reservation, I had a business where we did cell phone, computer and tablet repair, Gadget Gurus. When we transferred to Keshena, the workload got to where I didn’t have the flexibility to fix devices on a tight timeframe.”

Matt Golie decided that woodworking would be a better fit for the family.

“The Menominee tribe is known for lumber, and we figured that that would be a business format that would actually speak the language of our community,” he said. “So, we started playing around with lumber and began with small signs and cutting boards and have been adding and developing as we go.”

“It started by word of mouth,” Terri Golie added. “People would request family signs for their houses.”

They also started crafting one-of-a-kind cutting boards that they showed at a craft fair at Menominee Casino Resort in Keshena.

“The ‘I love you more than fry bread’ boards were a big hit,” Matt Golie said, smiling at the memory.

The variety of wood items the family crafts is extensive. They are currently creating a pulpit for an Ojibwe church in Milwaukee. Matt explained that they are incorporating the Ojibwe greeting term “bozhoo” into the pulpit. The design includes animals that represent the different clans of that tribe.

The family carefully includes language from indigenous tribes into some of their other creations.

They also make plaques for the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin’s human resources department to honor employee longevity milestones.

Other items that they craft are tic tac toe boards, wooden coffee mugs and wood-wrapped insulated mugs. One of their items is a business card holder, crafted to look like a canoe. Josiah helps to paint the holders to look like birch bark. They also do quillwork and beadwork.

“We really love and appreciate our community, and we’ve learned a lot from our community,” Matt Golie said.

He said the family received a lot of help from Paula Waukau, a Menominee elder who taught the Golies how to do quillwork.

“With the quillwork and the beadwork stuff, we’ve intentionally taken time to learn from people in the tribe,” he said. “Especially with the quillwork, I really feel like that was a really important piece to learn from someone within the tribe.”

Describing how they start new projects, Matt Golie said, “We learn as we go, look at things and kind of make it up as we go. For example, I have a friend who has a catering business, and he asked me if I could make a tortilla press. I’ve never made one. But since I work with wood, we just played around with it and came up with one.”

Matt Golie said there are a couple of different methods when it comes to quillwork.

“There’s birchbark quillwork, where you’re actually going through a piece of real birch bark,” he said. You lay out your design before you start and then you work your quill through it. I know of one person on the reservation that can do it. The other method is a wrap, that’s more common. An example is dangling earrings or circle earrings, with the quills wrapped around.”

The Golies harvest the quills from dead porcupines.

“We have friends who’ll call us to say they’ve found a dead porcupine on the side of the road,” Matt Golie said. “We dye the quills ourselves. All of the boys know how to harvest the quills. Depending on where on the porcupine body the quills come from, they can vary in length. We’ve had some up to 6 inches.”

Terri Golie, a teacher at Gresham Community School, designs and helps to paint. She makes sure that the final product is ready for sale.

“As a family we are a team,” Matt Golie said. “We don’t do things on our own. I hope my kids realize that they are part of this; they aren’t just dragged along. We make a good team.”

Terri Golie said the children get to contribute ideas, as well. The family was brainstorming how to make a gift for a friend when Josiah thought about making volleyball earrings out of quills.

“Once, Quinn and a friend did something in school about the lifecycle of frogs. We created a carving of a frog. Quinn painted it up and took it to school,” Terri Golie said.

While the business brings in money, Matt Golie believes it’s important to have fun when involved in the creative process.

“I feel that in this time, people change careers so often, but you can make equity just by looking at something and saying what can we do with this?” he said. “That’s where I hope that in all of my boys they have a sense of creativity to where they are willing to take risks, explore and try something different.”

Most of the Golies’ business goes through their Facebook page, Golie’s Woodworking. They take special orders, but those take time to complete.